1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a computer implemented system and method for creating landscape designs based on fluvial geomorphic principles.
2. Background Information
Throughout this application, various publications, patents and published patent applications are referred to by an identifying citation. The disclosures of the publications, patents and published patent applications referenced in this application are hereby incorporated by reference into the present disclosure.
Traditional landscape design, whether generated manually or using computer aided design software, is generally based on subjective judgment of landscape appearance or a desired land use with little consideration of proper hydrologic function for balanced conveyance of water and sediment from the land surface. Any water and sediment conveyance is typically accomplished through the use of engineered structural controls, such as drains and/or off-site earth material such as rip-rap and other aggregate.
Such structural controls tend to be relatively expensive, and once installed, require long-term maintenance, particularly when used on relatively large scale projects such as civil engineering for residential and commercial real estate, golf courses, ski areas, resorts, parks, highway and municipal construction, mined-land and other mineral resource company reclamation, repair of flood, earthquake, landslide, or otherwise drastically disturbed lands, reclamation of industrial areas to other uses, etc.
Moreover, conventional landscape design is typically based on conveying a single extreme discharge event, conveying only water discharge, and tends to be less than effective at conveying sediment discharges at low Q (water flow).
Such designs often rely on the use of gradient terraces, relatively expensive off-site earth material, such as rip-rap and artificial drain systems such as culverts and down drains, to effect such water discharge. These conventional approaches tend to be relatively expensive, particularly when implemented on steep slopes, and require on-going long term maintenance, which may be particularly disadvantageous when implemented in remote areas. Conventional designs also tend to require relatively large amounts of backfill to reduce slopes, and often result in slopes of minimal diversity, to reduce the variety of vegetation likely to grow successfully at the site, which in turn, tends to adversely affect the aesthetics of the reclaimed site.
Computer systems, such as the SurvCadd™ system available from Carlson™ Software, Inc. (Maysville, Ky.) are capable of creating and displaying three-dimensional computer models of existing landscape topographies, and comparing them to models of desired topographies. These systems create the existing landscape topographies by collecting data from vehicles traversing the site. Moreover, the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,191,732, entitled Real-time surveying/earth moving system, and which is fully incorporated by reference herein, provides cut/fill information in real time to facilitate construction of a proposed landscape topography.
The models of desired topographies, however, are generally imported rather than created by these systems.
A need exists for automating the generation of desired landscape topographies, such as for reclamation of mined or otherwise disturbed land, in a manner that provides for erosionally stable, hydrologically balanced designs using on-site materials.